At 09:52 AM 05-12-02 +0100, you wrote:

>Still in a test environment, I have two Win98 computers connected - the
>final server will be a Win2K computer.
>
>Firebird is working on the laptop, and I am trying to connect from the
>desktop computer. The desktop has an older copy of IB on it, but is not
>running IB.
>
>I am using the Interbase Interactive SQL (on the desktop) to test the
>connection - my principle being that if it isn't working, let's keep it
>simple to start with. Click on 'connect to database', and I get 'remote
>server' selected, network protocol NetBUI.
>
>However, I can't figure out what to put in the Server box. The desktop
>can see the laptop as the following.
>F:\
>LAPTOP_C
>Petes c on 'Laptop'(F)
>None of the above seem to be able to connect... "Failed to establish a
>connection. Unknown Win32 error 53.
>
>Can someone point me in the right direction, please.

Yup. Although Windows networking has the laptop mapped as drive F from the
desktop, you can't used mapped drives to connect to a database.

If the laptop was running NT/2k/XP, you could connect using the NetBEUI
protocol (still no mapped drives, though) - but, since the laptop is Win98,
it can *only* be a TCP/IP host.

You need to define the laptop as a TCP/IP host, both on itself and on the
client. For this you need an IP address: you can try good ol'
10.12.13.1. Into the Hosts file in c:\windows on both machines, make an
entry like

10.12.13.1 LAPTOP #Firebird host server

It won't hurt to add an entry for the client machine in both hostfiles
while you are at it, e.g.

10.12.13.2 DESKTOP #Desktop client

Then, once you have saved HOSTS on both machines, trying pinging each from
the other, using Start > Run > ping LAPTOP (and ping DESKTOP).

Once ping is working, you are home and hosed. Connect to the laptop using
this string:

LAPTOP:C:\path\to\yourdatabase.fdb

Let us know how you go.

heLen